It is because I love my sister and her family that I passed out the only box of Ho Ho's that I owned.

We were lucky enough to have a Hostess/Wonder Outlet right up the street.  I have bought my bread there for years.  We aren't the American white Wonder Bread kind of people.  They had a wonderful bread-- Nature's Pride Double Fiber Whole Wheat bread.  There were times that our favorite bread was $1.99/loaf.  I cashed in when I could find it for 99 cents a loaf.  You see, the normal retail is about $4. a loaf. When you went into the bread store and spent over $5.00, occasionally they would have a rolling rack of freebies to choose from.  A few weeks ago,  they had a rolling rack of Ho Ho's and that is how I scored my box.

K and I went to register her for archery class today.  Since we were going to be half way to my sister's house, I went ahead and phoned for a drive by playing.  She offered lunch of an unknown variety.  I packed a few boxes of Kraft Veggie Mac and Cheese, sweet potato fries and a box of Ho Ho's.  I came in the door, they were all at the table eating and I started the Ho Ho flip.

You would have thought that I brought them all something valuable.

"Wow!"  "It's really a Ho Ho?"

My brother-in-law announced to the family that I just passed on probably $200. in Ho Ho's, to which I exclaimed, "Merry Christmas!  It is because I love all of you so much that I share with you my box of Ho Ho's."  I even left them the box and threatened them not to burn it up in Chief (the wood burner.)

My niece, C, has designs on selling her loan Ho Ho for a profit so that she'll have Christmas money.  I do appreciate her attempt to make some cash.

We're not a snack cake house.  It is because of that that I had to let the Ho Ho free.  I would rather share them with a bunch of kids and family that would truly enjoy them, than to hoard them and keep them for ourselves.

In all seriousness though, I got the voice mail from my mom on Friday about Hostess going out of business.  Mom said that she watched it on MSNBC and since they are the same fine folk who didn't give rave reviews on Apple (go figure since I'm thinking that MS stands for Microsoft and not Multiple Sclerosis and they aren't going to be all pro on their biggest competitor), I didn't really give the Hostess thing a thought.  I was at school all day and had no time to do the bread store run that mom requested.  At the end of the school day, I did have 25 minutes before the bus would come.  I figured that I could fly through, get some bread and get out.

The parking lot was packed, y'all.  There was also a gentleman standing outside the door announcing, "I hope you don't want Twinkies."  "I'm not really a big Twinkie fan, so I'm good.  I just really want some bread."

There were bare shelves.  There was an old woman smacking her man in the arm because he was loading up on bread for the freezer.  Apparently, she was frowning upon that.  The bread I liked was in good stock, but mom wanted Smart White and I could only find one loaf.  I did find 3 packs of English muffins for her and a pack of 12 hamburger buns, where I picked up 6 loaves of our bread and a loaf of cinnamon breakfast bread.  I stood in a line for 10 minutes.  Usually I'm the only one in the store.

Sadly, staff confirmed that they only heard of the closing on the radio.  No one had been phoned.

Are we losing Ho Ho's and Twinkies?  Nah.  Someone will buy the rights and recipes and give them a run again.  We have people losing jobs and the holidays doesn't make it any easier.  We need to lift these people in prayer.  I'm good with giving up the snack cakes.  I'm not good with giving up jobs.  So sad.